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Welcome to London Civic Watch

"Ever wonder if City Council is as contentious and chaotic as it is sometimes portrayed? Here you can get a progressive perspective on some of the issues from someone who spent four years in the trenches. Totally unbiased, though!Feel free to comment but keep it respectful, just like they do at council."

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Care or control?

Muzzling wasn't limited to dogs at the
Community and Protective Services Committee on Monday evening as
committee members considered a contract for the provision of animal
welfare services.

It was clear from the outset that
interest in the issue was high. When I arrived at city hall a few
minutes after the 7 o'clock starting time, I was greeted by protesters of all ages but mostly female carrying signs deploring
the work of the current contractor, London Animal Care and Control
(LACC) and its high kill rate. Once inside the building, I joined
others in the lobby; the elevators had been cordoned off. It seems
that the item on the floor dealing with taxi issues had attracted a
full gallery of cab drivers. There was no more room.

From there, we were shepherded into a
“holding” room used to handle overflow crowds. There were a
couple of projection screens on which the live-streaming from council
chambers allowed us to follow the debate on the floor. It took the
better part of an hour but at the end of it, everyone seemed pleased
with the result, a rarity in the history of city-taxi relations. The
owners and drivers left happy; we were glad to get to get a seat in
the gallery.

Orest Katolyk, Manager of Licensing and
Municipal Law Enforcement, led off with the presentation. He had also
been in charge of the taxi matter, but this was a tougher crowd.
People who care about animal welfare are a passionate group.

They had demonstrated their passion a
couple of years earlier at a public participation meeting on
expanding animal welfare services. They had come in droves; people
were seated in the window wells and standing in the hall to hear then
manager Jay Stanford talk about how the city wanted to move from
control to care. He had been soundly applauded. It was clear he had
the respect of the animal welfare advocates.

What had loomed large in the hopes of
the crowd at that time was the expiry of the contract with LACC, the
private for profit company run by Urban Animal Management (UAM),
which had held the contract since 1982. Although some minor
improvements had been made in that contract when I joined council in
2006, it was very much a control model with pets being viewed as a
public nuisance.

But despite the knowledge that the
contract would be up for grabs at the end of 2012, little seemed to
happen. A request for proposals (RFP) that should have gone out early
in 2012 was stalled. The introduction of a new council at the end of
2010 was soon followed by departmental administrative reorganization.
Animal welfare moved from Environmental Services to the Building
Division. Orest Katolyk was put in charge of the process with little
time to prepare. The RFP was put on hold and the contract with LACC
extended for another year, maybe a year and a half if needed.

It was now a year later, and Katolyk
was ready to make his recommendation.

The city had received four proposals
which were quickly narrowed to two, he explained. An expert panel of
three had evaluated the two proposals, one from UAM, the other from a
cooperative of rescue groups, Progressive Animal Welfare Services
(PAWS). They had agreed unanimously that UAM had a better track
record of financial stability and they had an up and running shelter.
Some thought had been given to a split model in which dealing with
cat issues would be given to PAWS, leaving education, dog muzzling,
and other dog issues, as well as spay and neuter, to UAM. However,
since PAWS had suggested that the cost of that would be about $1.3
million, it was a no go. Instead, $2.3 million would go to UAM with
an extra $600,000 to expand their facilities so they could have a
veterinary clinic. No longer would cats be put to death because they
had minor health problems. They could be treated and placed for
adoption should homes be available. The total cost would be $2.9
million but part of the plan was to do licensing blitzes which would
net about $1.3 million in revenue, all of which would go to the city.
And the city itself would introduce some other initiatives in terms
of establishing limits on number of pets, spay/neuter programs and
feral cat programs.

This, he suggested, was how council
could meet its objective of ensuring that every companion animal has
a caring and responsible home.

The mayor was perplexed. Although he
hadn't been at the 2011 meeting, he understood that there was going
to be a move from the control model to more emphasis on care, more
like the Calgary model that had been much touted; what assurance
could he get that this wasn't simply a re-issuance of the same old
contract? Where in this proposal were the pro-adoption and care
aspects? What about the split model? How much would that have cost? It
looked to him like just another tender for control.

Hearty applause from the gallery
greeted these comments. Committee chair Denise Brown reminded the
spectators that they were just that; they weren't there to
participate.

Katolyk tried to explain. Calgary was
different. They had a lot of money from issuing heavy duty fines. If
you didn't license your dog or cat, that was $250 and if you didn't
pay, there would be a warrant for your arrest. We don't have anything
that heavy-handed here, so we have to look to the tax base and we
need to keep taxes down. The "care" comes through expanding vet
services. Although LACC euthanizes only 3.3 cats per 1000 population,
still, that's 1100 or so cats, most of which have only minor
ailments. A little medical care and they'd be ready for adoption.

But the idea had been to actually
reduce “euthanization”, Bill Armstrong noted. In 2012 over 1200
dogs and cats had been killed; could they get that down to under 1000
with this contract over a couple of years?

Katolyk was uncertain. It would be hard
to come up with a target. But he was looking into alternatives to
euthanasia. There was a “barn cat” program, very successful in
Jackson, Florida. They were doing it in St. Thomas too, and probably
soon would be in London, in the agricultural areas. The cats would
fend for themselves by keeping down the mice.

From where I was sitting, it seemed
like the only difference between this and just dumping your unwanted
animals in the country was that the cats would first be spayed and
neutered.

It was becoming clear that none of the
committee members was particularly thrilled with the new contract.
But what could they actually say or do about it?

That's what Joni Baechler wanted to
know. What was the legal position? What were the rules about
interfering in a tendering process? She didn't want the city ending
up in a lawsuit.

It was a reasonable concern, John
Freeman, the manager of purchasing and supply informed her.
Councillors have to respect the integrity of the process. They can't
interfere. That was their by-law.

It was an awkward moment. What could
they discuss, then?

Bachler had been there, years earlier,
when the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (AWAC) had brought Bill
Bruce to London to discuss the Calgary model he had implemented
there. She liked the model and thought London was moving toward it.
Surely, the provider had been made aware of that. But she didn't see
much of it in this proposed contract. This wouldn't likely lead to a
lower kill rate.

Katolyk was on the defensive. Instead
of the fines, like the Calgary model, he was proposing licensing
blitzes. Enforcement agents see a cat in the window, check to see if
it is registered and if not, they knock on the door. People don't
like it but it brings in a lot of revenue, 100% of it to the city for
its programs. Fines go into a different pot.

Then he dropped an interesting tidbit:
bringing this report back had taken time because there were hassles
with the insurance company over the vehicles that the city provides
to this private for profit company so that it can enforce the
by-laws. The insurance company has difficulty with the fact that the
drivers of the vehicles are not in the employ of the city!

It was an explanation that didn't
escape Denise Brown's attention. Since when, she wondered, does the
city provide vehicles for its private contractors?

Good question. And since when does the
city provide for capital expenditures for a private contractor to
renovate its buildings? The city had done that in 2007 by funding an expansion for handling discarded pitbulls.

Baechler had expected that, after all
this time, there would have been a radical change in the way in which
animal services were delivered. “How do we write in what we want in
terms of the kill rate?” she wanted to know. She wanted to see the
metrics.

Judy Bryant had a question that also
seemed to have no answer. “How are animals euthanized?” she
asked. And how can you be sure that what they say is happening is
really happening?

He didn't have the expertise to deal
with that, Katolyk said. He left that up to the provincial ministry
and it did random inspections. All had been satisfactory. And the
evaluation committee had gone through the facility and thought that
it was fine. But how the animals were killed, he didn't say. He
didn't mention the complaints about the facility
made by previous employees.

When it came to Harold Usher's turn to
speak, he suggested they listen instead to two people who had asked
for delegate status, both members of AWAC. But first, they had to be
advised that they could only speak in general terms, not to the
contract being proposed or to the proposal that had been rejected.
That was the rule.

AWAC chair, Sara Rans, was nonplussed.
What could she say without getting into trouble? She had planned to
talk about the concerns expressed at her committee meeting, but she
was nervous about mentioning that now. But, she pointed out, the work
that was being done in fostering and adoptions was being done by the
rescue groups.

It was a point that many in the gallery
had been waiting to hear. They clapped in approval. They were sick of
hearing how LACC has increased its adoption rate when it had simply
passed that responsibility on to the rescue groups. It seemed like
nothing had changed, that the city would settle for the status quo
with its emphasis on control. She hoped there was a better way but
she didn't know how she could articulate that, given the muzzle that
had been placed on her. “I am very fearful,” she said.

“This,” waving a spiral bound
document, “and the RFP do not match what has been presented today,”
she concluded. She was holding the 2011 report on Expanding Animal
Welfare Services.

She was followed by Diane Fortney of
Animal Outreach Cat Rescue. Given the caveats, she too had had to do
a hasty revision of her remarks.

What staff had presented did not match
the RFP, she agreed. The focus was on control, not care. The Calgary
model had been misrepresented. The fines were a small matter in the
overall functioning of that model; they accounted for less than 1% of
the resources. It was licensing; people lined up to get their
licensing cards which provided all kinds of perks from sponsoring
local businesses. She was appalled at the suggestion of proactive
blitzes, of people looking into your window to see if you had an
unlicensed cat. Was that something they wanted to pour their
resources into? Would bylaw enforcement consider going into your
backyard to see if you had junk? No, they would only do so if they
had a complaint. And gloating about a minor decrease in the number of
animals killed! There hadn't been any change in the city's kill rate
for 25 years. There were 171 jurisdictions in the US which had a no
kill policy, where 90% of the animals going into a shelter came out
alive. The only reason that there had been any reduction at all in
the number of cats being killed was that the city paid the rescue
groups $250 for every cat they took to foster. And
furthermore, when a mother cat was killed with her kittens, LACC just
counted it as one cat. That's how they kept the numbers down. It was
a private for profit business. There was no transparency, no
accountability.

“You have heard for many years about
the wishes of our community,” she concluded. “I beg you not to
betray the promises made to the community.”

The plea resounded in the applause from
the gallery. She hadn't been muzzled.

At this point, a small contingent from LACC left the room.

Earlier speakers had suggested that
more time was needed to get this right. It was not just the contract,
it was all the other pieces too, the community initiatives, the
spay/neuter programs, the number of pets allowed per household. They
should give a further extension to the contract for another six
months and get this right. It was unanimous.

It was not a good night for the staff
member who had been handed this task in midstream. Surely, those who
maneuvred the administrative reorganization should have known that
you are not likely to realize a shift from control to care by
shifting the responsibility to bylaw enforcement in the building
division.

But one has to wonder: how has one
company managed to hold onto a contract for more than 30 years? No
wonder UAM has a better track record than PAWS; it has a monopoly paid for by
the taxpayers, both in operating and, it seems, some capital costs.
Who else gets that kind of a deal? And how do you change it if those
who make the decision can't have input for fear of jeopardizing the
competition that never really existed?

6 comments:

Vicki Van Linden
said...

Last night the CAPS committee was most encouraging. Without exception, every councillor and the Mayor were clearly well informed and engaged with the material.

Before the meeting, Councillor Denise Brown and Councillor Bill Armstrong came out to speak with the many demonstrators. It was evident that several councillors had read the many emails and taken calls from concerned citizens because they had a good grasp of the issues.

Councillor Joni Beachler made some excellent points. Councillor Harold Usher pointed out the years of hard work of advocate,Dianne Fortney. That respect and recognition is much appreciated by many of us who know how much effort Ms. Fortney has dedicated to protecting animals.

This 6 month extension is much appreciated in this unique circumstance. The present contract recommendation is completely unacceptable so this time is needed for staff to go back to the drawing board.

It is interesting to know that Dr. DeLangly, who works in animal research at Western, was part of the evaluation team. This seems very curious. Surely we can all see that using animals to be researched on is a different way of interacting with animals than working to protect them.

Thank you for this insightful report. There are many factors that make this a complex issue, but it seems to me it all comes down to one question. How can City Council insist that a private, for-profit company act in a socially responsible manner? Staff can bring back a more detailed contract, and the service provider can follow it. But no one can make the service provider CARE about animals. The key factor about the Calgary model is that it is municipally run by someone who cares.

it is amazing how many people go to the barricades over cats and dogs. Given the economic costs and environmental impacts, it is astounding in this day and age. However, it is an easy to understand issues even for the dolts on city council.

Thank goodness Londoners care and rally to the cause of their companion animals - how a society treats its most vulnerable is a measure of the greatness of that society. I was proud to be a Londoner on Monday night and to champion for the "underdogs/cats"- well done! Thank you again to the Mayor and council for doing the right thing - the socially responsible thing.

Thank goodness for the compassionate people of London - I was proud to be a Londoner on Monday night and stand by to champion the cause of our companion animals. The greatness of a society is measured on how it treats its most vulnerable members - well done Londoners and Thank you Mayor and Council for doing the socially responsible thing.